


Breathe, It's Over

by 2am_limbo



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Violence, Night Terrors, POV Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch Angst, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch-centric, Soft Adam Parrish, hurt Ronan Lynch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26494786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2am_limbo/pseuds/2am_limbo
Summary: Adam was finely tuned into Ronan, and Ronan into him. His distress, his love, his anxiety, his happiness, they were always so palpable to him. Adam could feel it anywhere. It would start as a tingling in his hands, and then escalated into a comfortable warmth that would then travel up his arms before he felt the additional emotion join his own, like a bubble attracted to and joined another. It was surreal.When Adam shared this realization with Ronan, the boys hypothesized and liked to think that Cabeswater had created a special bond between its Greywaren and its Magician. The Foxway women said that it was due to Adam’s heightened empathy as a psychic and the Magician. Either way, Adam cherished it even if it could be overwhelming.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 4
Kudos: 78





	Breathe, It's Over

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: Very mild reference to violence, reference to suicide.

Adam woke with a start when he heard it, the very faint whimper. He was finely tuned into Ronan, and Ronan into him. His distress, his love, his anxiety, his happiness, they were always so palpable to him. Adam could feel it _anywhere_. It would start as a tingling in his hands, and then escalated into a comfortable warmth that would then travel up his arms before he felt the additional emotion join his own, like a bubble attracted to and joined another. It was surreal.

When Adam shared this realization with Ronan, the boys hypothesized and liked to think that Cabeswater had created a special bond between its Greywaren and its Magician. The Foxway women said that it was due to Adam’s heightened empathy as a psychic and the Magician. Either way, Adam cherished it even if it could be overwhelming.

Adam sat up and looked over to Ronan. He was on his side with his face almost in the pillow as he had a nightmare and his body trembled.

“Ronan,” Adam said quietly but firmly. When Ronan didn’t respond, Adam gently ran his hand over Ronan’s head and down to the back of his neck. He caressed over and over until Ronan was brought back with a coughing gasp. Adam had learned that this was the best way to wake a dreaming Ronan and not force him awake. Ronan would bring back whatever nightmarish thing he had been dreaming about if he was quickly forced back into the waking world.

Once Ronan’s breath became steady again, Adam said “come here,” and Ronan silently did as he was told. Adam sat cross-legged against the headboard, and Ronan shifted over to lay his chest and stomach in Adam’s lap, his head tucked against his stomach, and his arms wrapped tightly around his waist as he clutched his shirt.

Adam delicately caressed his head and neck with one hand, and traced his tattoo with a couple of fingers, careful not to tickle. Adam felt Ronan as he exhaled against his stomach, which caused Adam to shiver, and he wrapped his arms around his shoulders and lower back.

“It’s okay,” Adam whispered. He could feel Ronan’s despair, and he had this deep pit in his chest that made him want to cry and cry and cry and sob to the point where he didn’t even want to be... _here_ anymore. This is what Ronan felt, and Adam wanted to vomit due to the intensity of it, and the fact alone that Ronan didn’t want to live with this anymore. This was what happened to Ronan in his nightmare that exhibited as a suicide attempt when he first met him, Adam knew. He tried so hard to stay calm for Ronan, to keep the shaking and desperation out of his voice.

“Ronan,” Adam said again a little louder. “You don’t have to live with this alone. I know that I don’t understand the dreaming part of it, but I understand the aftermath. Let me help take some of it away,” he said with both hands on each side of his head.

When Ronan still didn’t say anything, Adam whispered “please?”

Ronan finally turned over in Adam’s lap then and lifted his head to look up in his direction but didn’t make eye contact. Instead, he simply pointed to his neck quickly before dropping his hand back down. If Adam hadn’t been paying attention, he would have missed it.

Adam looked closer and focused on Ronan’s neck in the moonlight coming through the blinds and his breath caught painfully in his chest as his eyes adjusted to what he was looking at. His neck was surrounded by deep, deep purple and black bruises in the shape of hands with abnormally long fingers, different hands all over and around his neck. The bruises were so dark and severe that it almost looked like movie prop makeup.

“Jesus, Ronan… Did night terrors do this?” Ronan simply blinked at him rapidly several times as he tried to clear the tears from his eyes.

“It hurts,” Ronan whispered so quietly that Adam almost missed it. Adam leaned down uncomfortably, causing his back and neck to burn, and placed his lips to Ronan’s forehead.

“Here, let me up a second, love,” Adam said and patted Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan loved it whenever Adam called him “love,” and he reserved it only for times when Ronan was upset. It had a strangely calming effect on him, every time. Ronan sat up then to let Adam up, and he hurriedly walked out and came back a minute later. Adam opened the tube of pain relief cream that he kept for after his long and hard days at work.

“I’m going to touch your neck, okay?” Adam said. He squeezed some in his hand and rubbed it together to warm it up, and then gently touched his hands to Ronan’s neck. He winced and hissed in pain.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m trying to be gentle. It’ll help the pain a little bit, I promise.” When he was done, he shook out a couple Tylenol from the bottle and handed Ronan a glass of water.

Adam laid back down and led Ronan down with him by his hand. He held him close and tight and tucked Ronan’s head in his neck.

“I’m glad you’re here, love. I don’t want you to ever leave, or to feel like that’s your only option.” At that, Ronan started to silently cry. Eventually, after an hour and a half of Adam caressing and massaging Ronan’s head, neck, and back, Ronan fell back asleep, exhausted from the crying and shaking, and all of the emotional turmoil. Adam didn’t sleep, though. Adam stayed vigilant, as he counted Ronan’s heartbeats as they pulsed against Adam’s chest to ensure that Ronan wasn’t in any distress.

The next morning, Adam woke up to an empty bed. He jerked up and jumped out of the bed in a panic and ran downstairs when he saw that Ronan wasn’t in the bathroom. Adam skidded to a stop on the bottom step when he saw the living room and kitchen filled with hundreds and hundreds of Lily of the Valley, Adam’s favorite.


End file.
